Ofsted has secured the first successful prosecution of an unregistered children’s home operator, after the directors of Catalyst Care Limited pleaded guilty at Croydon Magistrates’ Court to running three unregistered homes in Kent between 2022 and 2025.
Miriam Ekhator and Davidson Lynch-Shyllon, the company’s directors, were fined a combined £92,400, ordered to pay victim surcharges of £2,960 and costs of £17,250, and disqualified from managing or holding a financial interest in any children’s home. The case was heard before Judge Sushil Kumar. The homes accommodated up to nine children at a time and drew more than £1.7 million in local authority payments over the period during which they operated without registration.
For solicitors advising local authorities on children’s social care placements, the case reframes commissioning risk. Every children’s home in England must be registered with Ofsted, and operating one without registration is a criminal offence — yet placing authorities have until now faced little direct accountability for using unregistered provision, even where a shortage of registered beds leaves them with few alternatives.
Ofsted has estimated that around 900 unregistered children’s homes are currently operating in England, a figure the regulator itself describes as an estimate rather than a confirmed count, underlining the limits of current oversight.
New powers under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act will give Ofsted the ability to issue fines directly to unregistered providers, alongside increased funding to identify and investigate them — moving enforcement beyond the criminal prosecution route used against Catalyst Care and toward a faster, civil-penalty model.
Ofsted’s chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, has confirmed the regulator is separately consulting on proposals to downgrade local authorities that commission illegal homes, a step that would extend regulatory consequences from providers to the commissioning bodies that place children with them.
Children and families minister Josh MacAlister and Children’s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza have both publicly welcomed increased enforcement against unregistered providers, consistent with the wider social care reform agenda both have championed.
The case sets a clear precedent for practitioners advising care providers: registration failures will now attract criminal liability and financial penalty rather than regulatory correspondence alone, regardless of how directors characterise the underlying conduct in mitigation.
Firms advising local authority clients on placement commissioning should expect Ofsted’s consultation on downgrading non-compliant commissioners to generate fresh due diligence obligations before the next contracting cycle.